Between Gentlemen
by kingfisherwings
Summary: John Cena and Bray Wyatt make a bet about the true meaning of brainwashing. It isn't long before friends and rivals alike find themselves pulled into a wager between gentlemen.
1. Chapter 1

"You brought another brainwashing victim along? What's she going to do, Bray? Jump off something to prove her devotion?"

"John, John...there's that _word_ again. I've been thinking about that word, and about how easily you throw it around. I see you've been looking at Julia here, as well. And thinking that word about her."

"Of course. Isn't it obvious you've brainwashed her?"

"Why, John? Only because she stands here beside me?"

That was exactly what the girl was doing - and _all_ she was doing. Standing there. "That's reason enough."

She didn't _look_ brainwashed, or especially like what he'd imagined a woman among them would. The crowd obviously made her a little nervous, but she seemed clear-eyed and alert, visibly lacking in the crazies. But that didn't prove anything, did it? Especially with Harper and Rowan hovering inches behind her. Protecting her? Or keeping her from escaping?

"Julia agreed to come with us this week to help me prove a point to you, John. One you've been particularly stubborn about accepting."

"Agreed? Really? You expect me to believe she doesn't just do whatever you tell her?" There was no mistaking the sickened look that crossed Cena's face for a moment, or the thought it must have been in response to.

Bray sighed sadly and shook his head. "And you tell these people _my_ mind is bent." He handed the girl the microphone.

"Hello, John. I volunteered. You know, with my own fully-functioning brain. With my clothes on, too."

She was cute in a kind of indifferent way, pleasant-looking, but someone you'd just pass on the street without looking twice, he thought. Something Wyatt had said recently suddenly recoiled into his head: _They didn't think she was beautiful enough to be the prom queen_. That didn't have to mean hideously ugly, did it?

She just stood there looking serenely back at him as Wyatt went right to full-on crazy. "You can have a month to talk Julia into leaving the family - leaving me. If she wants to go after 30 days, I'll let her, and I'll bow to you calling my family whatever you like: Cult, brainwashed, zombies, whatever pleases you. But if after 30 days she only wants to come home, you'll let her. And those words never leave your mouth again about any of us. A bet between gentlemen, John, what do you say?"

"You're on." He knew he should think about it; hell, he should talk to Randy about it first. But this was his chance, it had to be. If he got Wyatt's hand-chosen prize away from him, then people would _have_ to see, wouldn't they?

"Hmm, before you accept, John, there _are_ some conditions."

"Of course there are."

"Oh, nothing you'd consider too burdensome, I'm sure. You do it yourself. No throwing her in a lockup or some 'deprogramming' center." He smiled. "I think you might find it difficult to convince them to commit her to begin with, being there's not a thing wrong with her. But this is just between us. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"And no tricks of the kind you surely think I've done to her. No depriving her of sleep, food, or basic comforts. You treat her as a _guest_ you're trying to make see your point of view, not as a prisoner."

"Agreed."

"Good. And you'll keep your hands off, of course. And all the other body parts around your house."

"Sick bastard. Of course I will."

"Ah, it needs to be in the rules, if only for Julia's assurance. She doesn't know you, after all. Not as I do. Then we have an agreement." He turned to the girl, who was looking more scared by the moment. "Go on, lamb. Make me proud, as you always have."

Harper leaned over her - for a few seconds, John was sure he was just going to bite her head off like a lollipop - and started whispering urgently in her ear. She nodded several times, her eyes never leaving Cena. When she took the first couple of steps toward him, Rowan lunged as if to grab her. Harper held him back with a hand on his shoulder and a firm head-shake.

The look in her eyes as she reached Cena and stood next to him was unmistakable: _What the fuck was I thinking? I want to go HOME._

She said nothing at all, not as she gathered her things (and refused with a furious glare to let him carry them) not as she sat in the car next to him, not at the hotel as he tried to figure out what he was going to _do_ with her...and how he was going to explain it to Randy.

She stood in the middle of the room until he muttered a curse and pointed to a chair, which she promptly went over and sat on, dropping her travel bag on the floor next to her.

"What the fuck _is_ this? Simon Says for a month?"

"I'm acting brainwashed. You know, so when you tell me that's what I am and I tell you I'm not, you see I know the difference."

"So if I admit you know what brainwashed means, you'll stop acting like a robot?"

"All right." She turned and looked out the window.

"You're going to spend a month not talking to me?"

"No. If you want to talk, we'll talk. But it's not my job to convince you of anything, is it? All I have to do is go home; I don't have to bring you with me. You're the one with all the work to do."

She had a point. "You don't want to do this, I can see that. He made you do it. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

"He didn't. People go out and do things they don't really want to do all the time. Every _day_. Because they have to be done."

"Because he brainwashed you into thinking you want to. For him."

"So everyone who volunteers for military service but doesn't like killing people is brainwashed? I'm sure your fans would _love_ to hear you say that."

"It's not the same thing."

"No, no one expects me to kill you. But it's the same concept. I don't like being called weak and brainwashed and a zombie. So I volunteered for the war effort. Trust me, I don't _want_ to hang out with you for a month. Not even a little."

"You think this is a war?"

"Don't you? You've got your first POW."

Unfortunately, Randy thought the same thing. He didn't drag John out of the hotel room by his ear, but it was close. "You just _had_ to say yes, didn't you? What the hell are we going to do with her for a month? Lock her in the bathroom?"

"Convince her. Show her what life away from them is like. He said I couldn't have professional help, not that I couldn't have _any_."

Randy thought she probably had a perfectly good idea what life away from there was like; she was too old to have been raised there. "So I'm recruited?"

"I need your help, Randy. No way this is going to be easy." He smiled wryly. "She hates me."

"Probably. What else did you expect? I doubt she's going to like me any better, either."

"So that means you'll help?"

"Fuck. Yeah, I'll help. Of course I will." He didn't think it was going to amount to anything, but what else was he going to do?


	2. Chapter 2

Julia was quiet; that was the first thing Randy noticed. John had said she didn't intend to run around the place proving anything, and that was definitely true. She mostly sat and read; when one of them started a conversation with her, she put the book down and joined in it until it was done, then picked the book back up again.

For three days, that was all that happened. It might have kept on being all that happened for the whole month if he hadn't torn his shirt.

It was one he liked, and he walked through the living room muttering over the loss as he wadded it up to toss it out.

"You're going to throw away a shirt you like because it's _torn_ a little?" Julia put down her book and waved in an impatient way that made him smile. "Give over."

He tossed the shirt to her. She inspected it quickly, and gave him a brief, annoyed look before she seemed to remember where she was and went back to stony neutrality. "It's just torn on the seam." She dug in her purse and came up with a sewing kit.

He watched, somewhere between amused and amazed as she matched thread colors, turned the shirt inside-out, and started sewing. The whole thing took five minutes; she turned it back the right way and tossed it back to him. "All fixed."

It was; he couldn't see what she'd done from the right side out at all. "Hey, thanks."

She just smiled and picked up her book again. That was a first. She pretty much didn't smile unless she was confounding John about something.

John was trying, and he was trying hard. It wasn't doing any good, but he kept on going. Randy wished he could believe it was out of concern for the girl, but he didn't. John wanted to win, and she was the game being played.

The problem was the same one every time he tried: He said she was brainwashed and not free to do as she pleased. She smiled and said she was as free as she chose to be. Lather, rinse, repeat. She never outright rejected what he was saying; she just calmly disagreed and went on with her day. Randy wasn't about to tell John so, but it was really pretty convincing.

It convinced him, anyway. John, not so much - as was obvious when he woke Randy the next night, insisting Julia was trying to run off.

"Dude, if she leaves early, Wyatt loses. She's not going anywhere."

"Then why did she just sneak out the back door? Come on."

They got outside just in time to watch her vanish over the fence. It looked like someone had helped her. They almost would have had to; it was a wooden privacy fence, and nearly seven feet tall.

That also meant they couldn't see what was going on. For a while, they didn't hear anything, either. Randy was starting to think John was right, and someone had hauled her over the fence and taken off with her.

"I'm all right, I promise. They're being nice to me, I told you. I know I shouldn't have called. But I miss you."

John and Randy looked at each other, both wishing they could see through the damn fence. Whoever was with her was either talking too softly to be heard or not saying anything at all.

"Baby, _no_."

They must have been whispering; it was like hearing half a phone conversation.

"I know, I miss you, too. A lot. But someone will see." She laughed softly, then there were sounds of what might have been a struggle. It wasn't much of one if that was what it was. "Oooooh...Oh, baby, _yes_."

Nope. Not a struggle. John stifled a laugh; Randy looked like he was trying to spontaneously grow x-ray vision.

Randy's lips against his ear sent a shiver through him. The sounds weren't helping, either. She liked what she was getting. A _lot_. "Go ahead - tell me you don't want to know who it is, too."

He did, of course. But now wasn't the time to confront her about it. He wasn't sure why; it was just a hunch he thought he should follow. Randy wasn't happy with being hauled away, but when she got pushed back over the fence, John didn't want her to find them there waiting.

What he needed, he decided the next day, was to talk to someone smart - really smart. The only problem was that the smartest person he could think of hated his guts. And it was mutual, too. But any port in a storm, right? He went looking in the downtime before Raw went on the air that week.

"You got a minute? I need to talk to you."

Wade looked like a man caught completely flat-footed. "I suppose I do. How goes the second career as a deprogrammer?"

"That's what I want to talk to you about."

"I thought it must be. Sit yourself. I assume if you're here, it's not going well?"

"I might as well be talking to a damn wall." He recounted his conversations with Julia; doing that, he realized for the first time how much they'd been the same one every time.

"It seems to me the biggest thing you're doing wrong is telling her over and over that she's wrong about her choices and her reasons for them, but not finding out exactly what they are and why she made them."

"Why does that matter? She _is_ wrong."

Wade gave him a look John could only think of as long-suffering. "If I'd listened to all you just said and then simply told you you were doing it wrong and walked away, would that help you?"

"No."

"It won't help her, either. If she's as unlikely a brainwashing victim as you say, then why she's become one in spite of it _does_ matter." He considered for a moment. "Are you truly sure that's what she is?"

"She's with him, isn't she?"

"People do some rather alarming things without having to be brainwashed into them." He smiled suddenly and entirely unexpectedly. "Ask Drew sometime what the May Dip is. You surely didn't think Wyatt would send you someone who'd fling herself into your arms and plead for a bus ticket home? He sent you someone _he_ doesn't consider brainwashed. Of _course_ he did. You may need to start thinking in terms of his being right."

He hadn't planned to tell Wade about Julia's little midnight tryst, but he found himself doing it anyway.

"Shame you couldn't see who it was. _Someone_ certainly has an extra stake in her going back. But why assume it's Wyatt? There's more than just him, isn't there? No one knew about _her_ until last week. Does anyone know how many of them there actually are?"

John shook his head. "Should I stop it if it happens again?"

"I wouldn't in your place. Being lonely and, ah...frustrated would only make her more eager to go back, wouldn't it? Unless you're hoping she'll fold her hand and end it before her time's through?"

"No. I want her to not go back."

"For her sake, of course."

"What else?"

"Heroism is an addictive substance, or so I've heard. Just be sure getting what you want really _is_ heroic." A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth for a moment and was gone. "You know, there _are_ worse things than it being Wyatt."

"Like _what_?"

"Baaaaaa."

John stared at him. "Oh...gah."

"Do you suppose men are the only ones who develop a taste for raiding the paddock? Good luck to you. I believe you're going to need it." Wade walked off, biting his lip to keep from howling laughing. The look on Cena's face was the best thing to happen to him in days. Drew was going to be terribly disappointed at missing John Cena having a sheep-fucking joke made at him.


	3. Chapter 3

John wasn't thrilled about it, but he thought Wade was probably right. He would be, wouldn't he? Why else bother talking to the smug bastard?

It took him a few days to decide the direct approach was the one to go with; she answered questions, even if she still didn't volunteer a damn thing.

"Not to be a dick or anything, but why did you do it? Join a cult? You don't seem like the type to me."

She put down her book; he thought it was the fourth or fifth one. "Have you ever noticed that when someone says, 'Not to be a dick or anything,' or 'No offense, but...' or 'I don't mean to insult you,' they're about to say something completely dickish and insulting and mean every word?"

John laughed; he couldn't help it. "Yeah, all right, your point. But why?"

"For a perfectly all-American, non-cultish, societally-approved reason: I fell in love and followed a man."

"Wyatt can't be an easy man to be in love with."

She looked at him, clear amusement dancing in her eyes. "He probably isn't. It's never easy to love someone with great responsibilities. But my husband would be terribly upset if I was in love with another man, don't you think?"

"You're _married_?" _And not to Fearless Leader?_

"Yeah. People do that, you know."

He could feel Randy standing behind him. "Well, uh, nice to meet you then, Mrs..."

"Harper."

"Oh, holy _shit_."

"You...He..." John was absolutely positive Randy was doing the same thing he was: Trying to force the image of Harper busting a nut in this girl out of his mind. "How long?" _Maybe they just got married and they haven't, this is some kind of loyalty test, that would be really -_

"Four years."

So much for that idea. "So then...you don't believe all this stuff? You went just for him?"

"I didn't, not at the beginning. I was with Luke, that was all I cared about. Bray never pushed me. He doesn't. I know you don't believe that, but it's so. Luke being happy matters to him, a lot. You probably don't believe that, either. You know, it's really hard to explain anything knowing you think I'm lying about all of it faster than a horse can trot."

"Not lying," John said. "Lied _to_. Deluded maybe. But I think you're telling me the truth as you see it."

"And you're understanding it as _you_ see it. And on we go."

"What changed your mind? About Wyatt, I mean."

"I went to my high school reunion." She smiled at the looks on both their faces.

"What happened?"

"Everything Bray said would happen. Every last bit of it. Did either of you go to yours?"

They both nodded.

"Have fun?"

John nodded; Randy shrugged.

"I watched them, just like Bray said to. They all remembered the prom queen, and they were all still kissing her ass. Which was considerably bigger, but that didn't matter. But not one of them even remembered who the valedictorian was."

"Did you?"

"Sure, but it's not really a fair question."

Randy smiled. "You were, weren't you?"

"Yes. She gained 40 pounds and I didn't gain an ounce of stupid, but that didn't matter. Even after five years, none of them had grown up, and none of them cared. It's not so hard a world to walk away from."

Randy couldn't help himself; he looked over at John. _Well?_

"So you're telling me _they_ care about your mind."

"More than you'd ever imagine, I'm sure."

"All right, make me imagine. What do you _do_ there all day?"

"What I want, mostly. I read a lot, which you probably already guessed. And I have my own work to do." She smiled. "There's a hierarchy, I'm sure you realize that. The wife of Bray's good right hand isn't scrubbing floors. What I mostly do is...help."

"Help _what_?"

"People. They do appreciate it a lot more than gators do. If they need someone to talk to, they come to me. I taught everyone who wanted to learn how to cook. A little first aid. Whatever someone needs."

"You're...camp counselor."

She laughed softly. "You're not the first one to make the comparison. Yes, I suppose I am. Being useful to other people is kind of nice, you know?"

It was pretty hard to argue that.

Randy didn't seem to have _anything_ to say about it, not even after they were in bed and out of her earshot.

"What are you thinking about?"

"A lot of grunting and sweaty hair and _yeahyeahyeah_. Sorry you asked?"

"Very. But I got you beat. All _I_ can think about is her blowing him."

"Aw, _shit_. Well, I wasn't going to sleep tonight, anyway. Or eat tomorrow." Randy rolled over on his back. Maybe the blank ceiling would help blot that whole new set of images out. "You know what this means, right?"

"There's no way I win. Just not happening. Wyatt loaded the deck real good."

"Well, you didn't expect him to make it easy, did you? Or fair."

"No, but...It wouldn't have mattered anyway, would it? She just wants to go home. To her...husband. Shit, I have to make myself even say it. Four _years_. He's been climbing on her for...gah."

"John, maybe you should just _let_ her go home. If you've lost, all you're doing now is being cruel to that girl. How old is she, anyway?" It was the first time it had really occurred to him. She looked pretty young, but she didn't really act it.

"I don't know. Randy, look, I can't just send her back there. Not until there's no other option. She made her choices, now she can pay for them. She wouldn't be here if she wasn't in a cult, would she?"

"All right, fine. You hold her prisoner for another two weeks, _then_ you let her go. If that's not proving Wyatt right in her eyes...And what the hell are you going to do if you _win_, John? You don't just win the bet, you win _her_. If she doesn't want to go back to where she came from, then what? You gonna just throw her out in the street?"

John was silent for a while. "All right, so I haven't thought that far. But no, I'm not just going to kick her out the door."

"If you win."

"Which I'm not." He sighed. "It doesn't _prove_ anything, Randy. Fine, so she loves Harper, however the fuck _that_ happened. That doesn't make that not a cult, or her not brainwashed."

"No, baby, that doesn't. But _she_ does, the brainwashed part, at least. Come on, John, seriously - you really think that girl's brainwashed?"

He didn't answer. Which meant no, of course; he knew very well that John could be every bit as appealing to be around as a defiant two-year-old once he got an idea wedged in his brain. And the idea that she had no free will was _all_ the way in there.

"How do you suppose they _met_?"

"Ask her. Maybe you didn't notice, but she answers questions."

"Great. I'll ask her that if you ask her what it's _like_."

"No fair. I don't _want_ to know that."

"Maybe he just gator-rolls her until she lays still."

"Have I ever mentioned I hate you?"


	4. Chapter 4

John wasn't sure how half his time had just melted away, but it was gone. Julia was no closer to wanting to be free of Wyatt than she'd been when she arrived, but he knew he'd already lost the actual bet. This was not a brainwashed woman. But she was still one in a cult, and he wanted to do something about that.

Randy was starting to piss him off, too. All he could see was that she was married - not to who, or the cult, or how dangerous Wyatt was. Or Harper, for that matter. Just _She wants to go back to her husband. Let her._ Sometimes he felt like the only one in the world who saw Wyatt for what he really was, and that _that_ was the important thing.

But Wade's advice might still have some use: Get her back to the beginning, make her see that none of this could have been her choice. Not Harper, not any of it. Besides, Randy wasn't going to ask his question first.

She laughed when he asked. "So you're thinking I didn't walk into a bar and there he was, my furry dream man, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"I moved in next door to them."

For a minute, all he could do was blink and gape at her. "That's...kind of out in the middle of nowhere, isn't it?"

"Not just kind of. When people in BFE talk about where _they_ think BFE is, that's it. But I had a research grant and I was by-god gonna use it."

"What do you research out there?"

"Why water moccasins are so mean in Florida."

"Snakes."

"Snakes. Usually if you piss one off, they put on a big show to scare you away. They bite more often in Florida, and they chase people sometimes."

"So you went out in the swamp to see if snakes would chase you."

She smiled. "More or less."

"And then?"

"And then the day I moved in, I went over to the kitchen sink and Luke was staring in the window at me."

"That must have been interesting."

She laughed. "I screamed like hell. He took off, I called the realtor and called her a bunch of names, and then I got to work. I spent most of that grant on renting the place and buying a hell of a lot of antivenom. I had to stay."

"So he must have come back."

"I came back from town and caught him rummaging around my house the next day. I damn near shot him. He started coming around when I was home after that."

"And doing _what_?"

"He fixed my refrigerator a couple of times. Helped me move some stuff around so I could do my work better. He didn't talk much at first, but he did more after a while."

"And he didn't freak you out."

"Yeah, for the first week or so. But he was nice to me. Careful. Like I'd break if he talked too loud or moved too fast. And he was the only company I had."

"So the rest of them didn't come around?"

"No. He probably thought I wasn't quite ready for Erick." She laughed. "And he was right."

"What the hell did you have to talk about?"

"What I was doing there, mostly. Which would have been what Bray sent him over to find out in the first place, right? He didn't answer a lot of questions about what went on over there. I didn't ask many, either."

"So how did you get from him hanging around to _this_?"

"I probably wouldn't have, but Erick was bitten. Luke knew I had antivenom, so he brought him to me. We sat up all night with him, and there wasn't much to do but talk. Luke did a lot more of it than he ever had before. That's when I started seeing a man I liked, not just one who hung around the place."

"But you still stayed where you were?"

"Yeah. Until the night two of the good ol' boys from town came around to have a little party."

"Aw, shit."

"Yeah. They didn't think anyone would come help me from over there if I screamed. They were wrong."

John wasn't sure when Randy had come in the room, but when he looked over there, Randy had the same look in his eyes he thought was probably in his own.

"Erick had come right behind him. Luke sent him back to get Bray. That was the first time I met him. They took me back with them, and I stayed for a week. Everyone just...closed ranks around me: I'd been there for days. No one saw anybody hanging around. Nobody saw _anything_."

"Why would they do that? For an outsider?"

"Because of Luke. And because of what I did for Erick. They owed me, right?"

"And _then_ you stayed?"

"I didn't want to leave any more. I thought I did, right up until it was time to. I went back to my house and went on with what I was doing. I had things to accomplish, right? But I couldn't walk away from Luke. And I was needed there, really needed. You don't find that every day, you know?"

"And now here you are."

"And now here I am."

Randy held his tongue until bedtime again - until about ten seconds after. "She didn't tell us everything."

"No, she skipped the naked, hairy stuff. Thank God."

"Do you think he killed them?"

"I think...if anyone went looking for those two assholes, they should have started with digging through alligator shit. Yeah, that's a couple of dead redneck rapists."

"No big loss. John..."

"I know."

"_Do_ you? She _loves_ him, man. It was all over her face. You still think she belongs anywhere but with her husband?"

"_No_, all right? But - "

"No, not _but_. You've gotta let it go. She's not your fight. Call it off. Let her go home."

"Not until you do your part." John smiled, even though Randy couldn't see it in the dark. "And you've gotta sit there and listen to every word."

* * *

(The whole story of their meeting is in "Everything Merges with the Night.")


	5. Chapter 5

"Harper?" Wade looked surprised; it wasn't a look Randy thought he must wear often. He'd had it for a second when he'd opened the door, too. "Well, he _is_ a fair bit more articulate than his partner, isn't he? And has John noticed what he truly ought to be seeing just now?"

"What do you mean?"

Wade looked like he was hesitating; Randy thought it must gall him to do anything to help John. Or him, for that matter.

"He managed to put Wyatt out for a week, to cut the followers off from their leader. Just what he's wanted, a chance to prove they can't function without him. As the brainwashed wouldn't be able to, yes?"

"But they did fine. They won their match."

"Harper stepped up quite effectively, didn't he? Just as a second-in-command ought to when the commander has fallen. Far from brainwashed, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah. But try to tell John that."

"I wouldn't waste time on something that futile. He sees this one way, doesn't he? That one, no other."

"Yeah, he does. I don't know about the rest of them, but he's got Julia wrong. And he won't call it off."

"Then perhaps you should."

Randy shook his head. "I can't do that. Right or wrong, I won't go behind his back that way."

"I understand. But that means you shouldn't judge him _too_ harshly, doesn't it?"

Randy supposed it did. It didn't make him happy, but there it was.

They'd been bringing Julia with them on the road; there wasn't anything else they could think of to do. He'd been trying to find ways to ignore her vanishing for a few hours now and then, and to keep John's attention off it. Screwed up or not, that was her family, and what would really be screwed up was if she _didn't_ miss them.

He didn't mean to walk up on them in a private moment, Julia and her husband (He could almost think it without cringing now.). He walked around the corner, and there they were, talking too softly for him to hear anything from where he stopped. He was pretty sure he was watching Harper saying more than he'd said in public in about two years. She was looking up at him, listening attentively, eyes alight. And there was no crazy at all in Harper's eyes, not a drop.

She reached up and ran the tip of her thumb over Harper's cheekbone, inside the small space of skin not drowned in hair and beard. Harper's eyes closed, and Randy swore he saw a smile find its way out of the tangle. He suddenly felt like he would have been invading their privacy less if he'd stood around watching them fucking. He still hadn't worked up the nerve to ask her about _that_ like he was supposed to, but he was suddenly having some very different ideas about what her answer might be.

Someone grabbed him by the back of the neck and the back of his shirt. He had an idea who it might be when he was half-hauled, half-dragged over to them.

Julia looked somewhere between exasperated and amused. "It's all right, Erick. Let him go."

He was released instantly. _You get some weird devotion, lady._

"Sorry about that. Time to go?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"You do what you have to do, just like everyone." She ran her fingernails lightly down the insides of both Harper's arms; the big man shivered like a horse in a thunderstorm. It had the feeling of a gesture that meant something only they knew. "One more week. That's all." Randy was kind of braced for a goodbye kiss, lots of tongues. It didn't happen.

She was silent as they walked up the hall to the exit. It was uncomfortable enough for Randy to break. "Rowan seems a little protective of you for not being the guy you married."

"I've told him more than once I probably didn't save his life, but I think he's passed his own judgement about that."

"You didn't? Those snakes are pretty poisonous, aren't they?"

"Venomous." It had the tone of something she did automatically. "If anyone around here should be getting that right, it's you, fella. They are, but the bite wasn't serious. Imagine being about yea big - " She held her hands out about three feet apart. " - and getting stepped on by something _that_ big. I doubt it was feeling its friskiest when it bit him."

She mostly clammed up when they got back to John. She'd been doing more of that the past week. Randy thought she might be regretting telling all she had - but why was she still talking to _him_, then?

She'd become a lot less challenging toward John as she'd become quieter, too. Randy thought it might be because she didn't have anything to prove any more; it was all proven. What was left was punching the clock, more or less. Or it would be if John would just leave her alone, admit he was beaten, and accept her leaving graciously.

Yeah. Right.

He wanted to stop John when he went out on the back porch, where Julia had taken to spending most of her time. But that wouldn't do any good; he'd just corner her somewhere else. Randy made sure he was standing where he could hear and see, though.

"Back for another round?" She put her book down. "I admire your determination, I'll give you that. I'm going home, John. Four days. I'm going back to my family, and you're going to have to stand there and hand me over to them. It galls you, doesn't it?"

_Well, I guess she's done with silent and serene and non-confrontational._ He couldn't say he really blamed her.

"Fine, yeah - it does. You can't see what they've done to you, and it's because you don't _want_ to. You just sit here and wait to go back so they can do it some more."

"No one's _done_ anything to me. I thought all this time you couldn't see that. But I was wrong. You see it. You just don't care about it. What I want has no bearing on this, no matter how much you say it does."

"That's not true."

"Then why is it that every time I tell you what I want, you just say I don't want it? What you mean is _you_ don't want it. _Who_ wants to make a zombie out of me, exactly?"

"You twist it around, you keep turning it around so it's on your side."

"Your own medicine tastes pretty bad, doesn't it? Randy wants to let me go home, doesn't he?"

He wasn't sure what _that_ had to do with it. "Yes."

"But you don't. So he does what you want. Why? Did you brainwash him, John? Is he a zombie? Stupid and gullible?"

"He - No. It's not the same thing."

"He loves you, is that what you were going to say? He does something he doesn't want to do, something other people might even think is crazy or illegal, because he loves you? How is it _not_ the same thing? Tell me."

"It just isn't, that's all."

"That might work on someone who's gullible or brainwashed, John. Not on me. You aren't my mother, and 'because I say so' stopped working even for her a long time ago."

"I think you should stay here longer. Another month, maybe more. Wyatt's got you all screwed up, worse than I thought. He didn't give me long enough, and he knew it."

"My God. I'm going _home_ on Monday, John. Just the way you agreed."

"What if I say you're not?"

"Then Luke is going to turn up here for something more than a visit. It's been all I could do to keep him from doing it already. Maybe I should have just let him. You're fucked up way worse than I'll _ever_ be."

Before Randy could say anything, let alone do anything, John jumped out of his chair and backhanded her across the face. Randy wasn't sure what to make his brain try to deal with first: That John had hit a woman, or that she hadn't tried to defend herself against it. Not her face, anyway. The second he'd raised his hand, both of hers had gone to her stomach.

He hoped like hell John hadn't seen it too, or he was going to lock the girl in the basement. _I've GOT to get her out of here, that's it, that's all._ But first he had to get some space between the two of them, as much as he could. He managed to talk John into going at least to the front porch.

"I'm sorry. _Really_ fucking sorry. Are you all right?"

She nodded, watching him warily.

"You're pregnant."

Wary turned to startled for a moment, then flickered back. "Yes."

"How long have you known?"

"Since last Friday. Before you ask, I wouldn't have come here if I'd known."

Asking that hadn't even crossed his mind. "Does your husband know?" For the first time, he didn't feel like he was going to choke on the word.

"That's what you walked in on Monday."

So Wyatt probably knew by now, too. Randy couldn't imagine what he'd think of it.

Her hand drifted to her stomach again. It didn't look like a defensive gesture this time. "We've been trying for a long time. Almost a year. Count on me to wait until he's not home much to decide it's time, right?" She glanced toward the front of the house. "Tell him he's lucky. If you think he'll believe it."

"How's that?"

"Because I'm not going to tell. And because the last bastards who hit me are never going to hit anyone again. What do you suppose he'd do _now_?"


	6. Chapter 6

Randy was mostly grateful John hadn't left a mark on Julia. He didn't think there was anything he could have done to stop what would have happened, and John had to go out there and hand her over alone, anyway.

"For me, all right? If you can't do it for her, do it for me: Just let her go home. Don't do anything crazy. And don't _hit_ her again."

"Look, I said I was sorry. I said it to you, I said it to her even if she didn't deserve it. What the hell else do you want, Randy? You think that mouth won't get her in trouble with Harper sooner or later? Or Wyatt? They could be beating the hell out of her all the time and who the hell else knows what? You still don't see that, how can you not?"

_You didn't see what I saw, either._ He couldn't even start to imagine Harper doing anything to hurt Julia, not any more. And he thought Wyatt probably had a good idea of the value of what they had in her, too. "Just let it go, John. It's over. Let _her_ go." Honestly, he'd be as glad to have his own life back as she'd be to have hers.

"Is there going to be a problem with this?"

Randy turned to look at Wade. The man still wasn't his first choice to have sneak up behind him, but he had kind of a new view of him these days, too. "I don't think so. He _has_ to know it's over now."

"For his sake, you should hope so. I saw Harper earlier. He looks like a man who's through with waiting."

But Harper wasn't there when Wyatt, beaming like a lunatic sun, came out to answer John's demand that they finish their business. Rowan wasn't, either.

"Have you brought my lamb back unharmed, John? Or maybe I've been _all_ wrong and she's staying with you?" Wyatt got in the ring and stood across from them. The look in his eyes said he wasn't really much happier about the grip John had on her wrist than Harper would have been. "If it's willingly, _let go of her_."

Randy thought it was the sudden change in tone that made John actually do it; Wyatt had gone from jocular, almost teasing, to sounding every bit as dangerous as John swore he was, as if a switch had flipped.

"Julia?"

She didn't hesitate, not for a breath or a heartbeat's span; she walked over to Wyatt, who smoothed her hair back in a tender way that raised a mutter from the crowd, who'd been mostly silent until then, watching fixedly.

"Welcome home, lamb." He moved her behind him. "Stay there. Don't move."

"What, you think I'd hurt her?"

"I don't think you'd hurt her, John. I _know_ you did." Bray felt Julia clutch at his arm and glanced at her. "Shh, darling. Everything's fine now." His eyes flicked back to Cena. "I'm simply avoiding her becoming collateral damage. Now, especially."

He understood a few seconds too late. Harper and Rowan were on him like a pack of wolves. He didn't even see where they came from.

Randy closed his eyes when he couldn't stand to watch any more. That was when Wade understood. "My God. _You_ told him. What's he done?"

"He hit her. Almost hard enough to knock her out of her chair. But she still won't let them hurt him too badly. I doubt he understands that, either."

She didn't. Wade saw her plead with Wyatt; he couldn't hear, but the words were written in her eyes clearly enough. Wyatt said something in return and stepped aside. The girl took two steps toward the mauling happening at her feet and spoke softly, briefly. Wade thought it was the two men's names.

Rowan stopped immediately; Harper didn't. No great shock, that. He did after a last pair of kicks that sounded as if they were striking a sack of pudding. He reached the girl in two enormous strides and utterly enveloped her. What the crowd thought was obvious by the sound of 15,000 people gasping in unison, but they quickly realized Harper meant no to harm to her - the opposite, in fact.

"Are you going to tell him who told them?"

Wade shook his head. "It's not my business. That's between you." He walked away before Orton could ask the obvious question. He still had no answer to why he'd thought _any_ of it was his business.

* * *

It was the homecoming she'd been wanting since the moment she'd agreed to leave - that and more. They had more to celebrate than they'd been expecting to, and once she'd eased Luke's worry over "squishing" the baby, they'd done their celebrating in their bed.

Even after four years, that was a constant surprise to her. She had no illusions about him; she loved a dangerous and unpredictable man. She was sure her saving grace was equally as simple: He loved her back. He was gentle with her in general, but never more than in bed. He seemed fully aware that he could hurt her, easily and badly, and was determined not to. It had been like it was for them in the first couple of years, before _trying_ colored everything. They didn't have to try any more; they'd succeeded.

_Hi, in there._ She let her hand slip down over her stomach; she'd been trying so hard to not do that unthinkingly, to not give herself away. She didn't have to do that any more. _You've got a lot of surprises waiting for you when you get out._

"Happy to be home?"

_And here's one of them now._ She'd come out on the porch in what she'd picked up off the floor - panties and a tank top - and her first impulse was to try to cover herself. But Bray had probably already had as much of a look as he wanted; she wasn't going to act like an airhead about it now. "Yes, I am." She moved over to give him a spot to lean on the railing with her if he was inclined.

He was. She smiled when she caught his glance. "Two more months, maybe three. And then I'll probably go from bump to waddling around with my hands in the small of my back overnight."

"I've been hoping for this. It's right that it should be the two of you."

This would be the first child born here.

"Have you been hesitating to have a child here?"

If he was asking, it was certainly because he already knew the answer. "I've been thinking about that hospital. A lot."

He nodded. "Go further afield. Into the city. Find a doctor who will give you the care you need without a lot of questions that aren't anyone's business. But that isn't all, is it?"

Again, she assumed he already knew. "I wasn't sure what you'd think about the whole idea."

"Luke didn't reassure you about that?"

"He tried."

"I know you're aware that you're unique among us - the only one who didn't come here looking for me, looking for answers. Do you still wonder why I've tolerated that?"

"Not as much as I used to. Only three or four times a day now."

"You're valuable to me, to everyone here, as you are. Modern-minded as you are, I'm sure you won't like hearing this, but you bring a stability that was lacking. A woman they can look to. You and Luke together, a family structure they know and understand. And someone to watch over things here when we're gone. I'd intended that task to be Luke's, but I need him at my side. I've seen all the more how valuable that is while you've been gone. You were missed."

_Camp counselor_, she thought, smiling.

"But even that isn't what really troubles you, is it?"

"No." She paused, organizing her thoughts. He let her. "I'm having a hard time connecting up you saying you're happy about this with what you say is coming. You're happy to see a child born into a world that's all going up in smoke?"

"Yes, it's all going to fall. It's all going to burn. But something new will rise. And it will belong to the children. They'll know how to not make all the old mistakes."

"Do you think people ever really learn?"

"With someone to teach them. Where has that ever come from before? They think I preach the end. I'm promising the beginning, but they don't hear that, do they? Even you haven't. But you're beginning to. You've embodied it from the moment you came here to us. But it's hard to see what you embody, because it's not in front of you. You know where to look now. _See_. You have a mirror in the eyes of your husband. He sees all you are. You see him as others don't. Do you think he doesn't see you the same way?"

He left her there thinking about it. She thought that was going to keep her busy for a while.


	7. Chapter 7

When Luke was away, her favorite part of the day was a simple one: Sitting on the porch with a book, watching the day unfold around her.

Call it a compound, a cult, a Modern Religious Movement if you were feeling polite. What the place mostly seemed to her was a household. People had their jobs, and they did them. Lives intersected - not always serenely - they shared common things and things that made them different from one another, had their meals together, fought, helped one another. She didn't think it was an accident, or a lie, when Bray called them a family.

Which made her...not the default mother, exactly; that would have been so if it were Bray she were married to. Aunt, maybe. Bray was the center of their inner lives; Luke, of their outer ones, the older brother they looked up to and came to with their daily problems, large or small. He was good at dealing with them, too; he had an odd way of applying his skills at fixing things to fixing problems - odd, but undeniably effective. It had started to fall to her almost immediately to take care of that when he was gone.

If this were a castle, she sometimes thought, Luke would be the steward. And her? Majordomo, chatelaine, maybe.

"Julia?"

The young man and woman standing at the foot of the porch steps were holding hands. Everyone had noticed, months ago; now they were looking ready to tell. And they'd come to her to do it. _Camp counselor_, she thought, smiling as she got up to go meet them. They'd probably have to come help her out of the chair in a few more months. She was looking forward to a lot of things; that, not so much.

It went about as she was expecting: They wanted to marry. Did she think Bray would give them his blessing? She told them she did. It was more than a hunch; he'd told her so last month, assuming they'd come to her first. He was right; he generally was.

She still ran the kitchen; it wasn't easy to teach people to cook, especially to do it well for a large number of people. Cooking for five and cooking for 35 had less in common than most people thought. She finally had a core group of six - four who were competent, and two who had a real talent. She'd been hovering less over the past few months, letting them run their own show with occasional check-ins. Dinner was going fine; she had to nudge the one she usually did about not cooking fresh herbs for hours on end, but that was about all.

She hadn't been sure what to expect from mealtimes when she'd first come - stone silence, maybe, or a convenient time for some group indoctrination. She'd been happy to find them a time for everyone to relax and simply be together. It had been her first intimation that maybe "family" wasn't just a word to gloss things over after all.

She couldn't read after dinner; the light would attract every bug for about 100 miles around. She usually spent the time from dinner to dark on the porch, anyway. She was used to seeing this landscape, strange and even hostile as it would seem to most people, as beautiful. She liked spending time in it.

She was close to dozing in her chair, and as sure of who was around her as she always was, so when someone sat in the chair beside her, she didn't look up right away. When she did, her first instinct was to jump up and just run.

John Cena prevented that - and any chance she would have had to scream - by grabbing her by the throat.

"I'm just here to talk. If I let go of you, can we do that?"

She nodded as best she could. When he let go, she took three huge, whooping gasps of air before she felt better. "You shouldn't be here. You _must_ know that."

"Neither should you."

Did he _never_ give up? "I'm exactly where I should be. If you have anything else to say, say it fast. I'm not out here alone for long very often."

That was normally true. But it was more or less understood that unless something was on fire, this was her time.

"I figured out the problem." He said it in the same tone someone else would say, "I figured out why the car won't start."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You've got it in your head that the only man who'd ever want you is here. So of course you're going to be loyal. You need to know other men want it."

The turn from _want you_ to _want it_ bothered her. A lot. She didn't think he even noticed he'd done it. "I didn't arrive in Luke's life shrink-wrapped."

"You'd say that. But I don't think it's true. You're coming with me. I'm going to show you."

"Show me _what_, exactly?" She had a pretty good idea already.

Instead of answering, he grabbed her hand and put it on what he meant. He was hard; that finished it for her. She wasn't the only one she had to think about, not any more.

Bray and Luke had both insisted he might come here, try something like this. She'd been sure the man wasn't _that_ crazy. But as per usual, they'd been right. Bray had insisted; Luke, for the first time in their marriage, had issued a flat, direct order. It had shocked her enough to make her follow it without debate.

"All right, now."

The four biggest of the men save Luke, Bray, and Erick had been following her everywhere since they'd left; she was fairly sure two of them slept outside the bedroom door at night. Three of them stepped up now and grabbed Cena. He was surprised enough that it didn't take much for them to subdue him and truss him up thoroughly in plastic cuffs. That was when the real internal struggle started for her. She didn't want anyone hurt; there'd been enough of that. But he truly wasn't going to leave her alone without some drastic actions to change his course. Didn't this prove it?

"Were you told what to do with him?"

One of them nodded.

"Then do it."

She was relieved when they dragged him in the house; her money was on dumping him in the swamp and letting him drown.

She tried to sleep. After two hours she knew it was a lost cause.

Two of her guards were still sitting by her door. What they'd been set to guard her from was in the house now, after all. She hoped. "Is he still alive?"

One of them nodded.

"Show me."

He did, but reluctantly, and showed no sign of leaving her side after they got to the attic, even though the other two were sitting with him.

"He's had food? Water?"

The two sitting with him said yes, pointing to a heap of plates and empty bottles.

"Have you?"

They looked at each other. It was answer enough.

"Go get something. I want to talk to him. I promise this is as close as I'll get."

They measured the distance, ten feet or so, with their eyes, then got up and went. It took more effort to send the one who'd escorted her away. She'd meant what she'd said; she sat on the floor right on the spot where she was standing. "Are you hurt? Anything that needs attention right now?"

"My arm's cut. I think it's still bleeding."

She started to get up. "I'll get someone."

"No, don't."

She looked at him for a long time. Everyone could say what they wanted; right here and now, she was looking in the face of crazy. "You're not really hurt, are you?"

He shook his head.

"There's something I want you to understand. I don't think you will, but I'm going to try anyway. This is the second time you've tried to hurt me. I don't know if you're just fucked up, or you think it's going to change my mind somehow. But it has to stop. I made them stop last time. I doubt I'll be able to this time. I'm not sure I want to any more. _You_ did that, no one else. _Look at me._"

He'd started to turn away; he turned back.

"You were going to drag me away from my home and rape me. I'm sure you have a different word for it, but it doesn't deserve one. Rape is what it is. I'm not going to have to tell Luke that; it doesn't matter if I do or not, three other people saw and heard everything, and they _will_ tell him. I doubt I could stop them if I wanted to. What he'll do to you for that alone, I don't even know. Are you paying attention? All of it?"

He nodded.

"I'm pregnant. Luke knows that. What do you think he'll do to you now, knowing you were going to rape me with his child inside me? You think about that. I figure you have about 14 hours to do it in."

He just stared. She started to get up again, assuming he had nothing to say.

"You're going to raise a kid here? _Here?_ Cut these things off me. We can leave together. I'll give you time. You'll want to eventually, when you're away from here and your head's clear."

That was it, then. She'd come in knowing this was more about what she'd hear than about what he would. There was nothing more she could do.

Somehow, accepting that made it easier to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Julia had plenty of time to think about what was going to happen, even considering the time she spent sleeping. No matter how she looked at it, it kept coming back to the same place: Luke was going to kill Cena this time, just beat him until he stopped breathing. And she couldn't let him do that.

She wanted to be first to talk to him, but her guardians didn't let that happen. When he did come to her, she was sure it was too late. Her husband was in there somewhere, but she couldn't see him any more.

"I know what you want to do. You can't."

"Julia..."

"He's completely batshit insane. I get that. Believe me, I do. But what you want isn't the only consideration, not any more."

"I know you don't want me to."

"I'm not sure if I do or not any more. But I don't mean me." She took his hand and put it on her belly. "I don't want our child to have to visit Daddy in prison. Or in the graveyard. This is a death penalty state, you know. And this isn't like...before. You can't make John Cena disappear and hope no one notices or cares. That won't happen."

"She's right, Luke. As much as it pains us all. We'll deliver a lesson he won't forget easily. But we have no choice but to send him away alive."

Julia had enough mixed feelings about Bray even now to be perfectly happy when he let her deal with things herself. Right now, she couldn't have been happier to hear his voice. For a moment there was a black fury in Luke's eyes she'd seen only once before. He burst out of the room and outdoors before it showed any more than that.

"You've been worrying."

She glanced at Bray. "Of course I have. I knew how angry he'd be."

"And you're not? Still?"

"I am. But not enough to kill another human being. If he'd done something to hurt the baby..."

"Luke feels as strongly about you being hurt as about that. You _do_ understand that, don't you?"

She nodded. There was an intensity about his feelings that was incredibly comforting to her most of the time. At times like this, it veered more toward terrifying.

Bray stunned her silent by taking her arm and folding it companionably into his. "Come walk with me a while before we go tend to this business."

"You're going, too?"

"Of course. Hasn't it sunk in yet that I place value on you? Not in the way Luke does, of course, but I would be very upset to see you come to harm."

They walked out into the woods on one of the trails cut by many people walking there.

"I didn't think you liked me very much."

"And at first, you were absolutely right. I was a bit jealous, I suppose."

_Oh, let's not go here, whichever direction here is._ "Jealous?"

"Not sexually, so you can stop looking at me with that carefully-neutral expression." He paused, seeming to gather his thoughts. "Luke is very special to me. You know that. He was first to hear, to understand, to believe. It gave me strength in the early days. No one knew him better than I did. Until you appeared. You have access to a part of his inner life I never will. And yes, that made me jealous. I wanted you to leave, but by the time we met, I saw it was already too late for that. I'll admit, I didn't understand. Not that it ran both ways for the two of you, or how deeply."

"It took me a while to figure that out, too."

"You still are in some ways, aren't you? You wanted a lover, a partner, a husband. And you have those things. And now you're going to learn the rest: You also have a mate. You had that before you had any of the other things, didn't you? Luke's going to defend his mate, Julia. It's how he's made. I'll ensure you won't have to face life as a single parent. But you can't expect him to just forgive and forget what's been done to you - or even more, what Cena _wanted_ to do to you."

"I don't."

"I thought not. But try not to be frightened by how he may come home tonight."

She considered what that might mean all through the four hours they were gone. She had a good idea what she could expect, and all she could do was smile and think, _I wasn't scared of it the first time. Well...not much._

She was right, and she knew it the moment she saw the look in his eyes when they locked on her.

"Is he alive?"

He nodded. "It's ten times more than he deserves."

"And what has to be. Now, about those _urges_ you were talking about..."

"Those...aren't the kind you want to know about. The kind I had to control tonight."

"Got any other ones you'd like to discuss?"

He nodded. He would have fallen on her like prey if he hadn't held himself back at least a little at the last moment. He was controlling these urges, too, as much as he had to.

But not entirely. She could feel herself carried back to that night, to the whirl of feelings she'd had as he'd pinned her to his bed: fear, lust, triumph. She was feeling a little of all those things now - hungry, proud that she could still make him this way, a little alarmed that he could still _be_ this way, that it wasn't hidden all that deeply.

She might quiet the animal in him as he said she did, but he stirred the one in her; when they met in the middle this way, all she could do was give in and ride it out. On a good night, she figured about half the house heard her. Tonight she was sure everyone did as she moaned and writhed and called out to him, to all the things Bray had said he was to her. He was right about every one - lover, partner, husband...and mate, that too.


	9. Chapter 9

Wade had wanted the whole thing put behind him; he was juggling troubles of his own just now. But Cena vanishing for two weeks - unnoted on television, unexplained by anyone backstage - was cause for alarm, especially given what he knew. It took him a while to track down Orton, who was lately very disinclined to talk to anyone at all. Wade found him alone, which wasn't so strange, and behind a door that could be closed and locked. He did both.

"What's happened? They've gotten to him, haven't they?"

Randy wasn't sure when Wade had become his confessor, but what the hell. "Oh, it's even better than that, man. _He_ went to _them_. He was going to walk in there and take her. And show her she could get a man who wasn't in a cult."

_Oh, fucking hell._ "How exactly was he planning to do that?"

The look Orton gave him was answer enough.

"And they caught him, I'll assume. How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad. They didn't beat him to death, but I think that was more luck than planning. And..." He couldn't. He just couldn't. Not to Wade, not to anyone.

He didn't have to. "And they took an eye for an eye?"

Randy nodded.

"I'm sorry, I truly am." _And if he didn't know that would be his fate if they caught him, he's far more a dribbling idiot than I've ever thought him._

"I am, too. But I can't quite tell myself he didn't deserve it. He was going to do it to her. I'm not proud of that, but there it is."

"Randy...You _have_ to do something about him. If he isn't put off this obsession by what's happened, you know what the next step in his descent has to be."

"Sure, yeah. She's better off dead than with them, right?"

Wade nodded. "And if he tries that..."

"I think Harper's already killed someone who tried to hurt her." He hadn't told Wade that part before. It didn't take long to.

"I wish it came as more of a shock, but it doesn't really, does it? However the hell you have to do it, keep John away from her, for both their sake."

Randy thought that was easy to say - and even to agree with - but it was going to be one hell of a thing to pull off. He had another week before John would be able to start plotting anything again; he needed to have an idea before then. But something else crossed his mind right now. "You doing all right, man? I was sorry to hear, seriously."

Wade looked completely stunned. "Yes, I'll be all right. Life is made up of what we lose, isn't it?"

"It is if you give up, yeah. Doesn't sound like you to me, man."

"Does a futile struggle against the inevitable sound like me, then?"

"Nope. Doesn't sound like me, either, does it? But I'm gonna go home and try."

He did. It didn't help much.

He tried talking. And talking. And talking some more - about the girl, about how clearly she loved Harper and how clearly it was mutual, about what was surely going to happen if he went after her again. He could almost feel the words just sailing by John. He didn't want to hear them, so they didn't exist.

He tried telling him what it was doing to them, since he seemed unaware of that, too. John just said it really _had_ nothing to do with them and that was it.

He finally did the one thing he'd desperately not wanted to do: He told John who'd been responsible for Wyatt finding out about Julia being hit. As far as Randy knew, John still thought she'd told him. "I would have let you go on thinking it, too. But you need to know _why_ I did it now."

"Yeah, I'd kind of like to know."

"So you'd pay for what you did, for all of it, not just belting her. I couldn't do it; I couldn't give you the ass-kicking you deserved for that. But they could, and if they did it there in front of people, they could only go so far."

"They went a _lot_ further, Randy. Maybe you didn't notice, but I sure did."

"_Fuck_. Yeah, they did. _After_ you ignored it and kept after her. _After_ you tried to kidnap her and told her right to her face you were going to rape her. Then you got what you got. John, it has to stop. _You_ have to stop. If you do it again, they'll kill you, and you know it."

John thought about it after Randy left the room to give him space to. He thought for almost an hour. There was really only one thing he could do now. He reached for his phone.

* * *

The knock on the dressing room door was loud - not quite a hammering, but not missing it by much. Randy opened it to the sight of Luke Harper, eyes black with fury, standing there. Randy tensed to duck before he realized that what looked like a clenched fist was actually Harper clutching something in his hand that was small enough to be engulfed in it.

"I want to talk to him. Once more before it all comes crashing in."

"Why?"

"Because I married a very tender-hearted woman. She doesn't want me to do what I want to so very badly, and I can't seem to not indulge her just this one last time."

"What's he done?"

"Let me talk to him."

Randy's major impulse was to slam the door, lock it, then set it on fire to cover their escape. Instead, he stepped back and let Harper in. John didn't really look surprised to see him.

He sat in a chair on the other side of a low table from them and put a phone down on it. "That belongs to my wife. Which _he_ already knows."

Randy picked it up. There was a text on the screen: _Don't be afraid. I won't forget about you, even if everyone else does. I'll be back for you._

"I want to gut you like a trout right now."

"That's what you came to tell me, isn't it? Go on, get it off your chest."

"I'm going to keep it simple: If you ever try to get anywhere near my wife again, I'm going to kill you."

"You've done that before."

"She told you. Yes, I did it before. And I enjoyed it. Listen to me now: When I killed the two men who were going to hurt her, she wasn't married to me. I hadn't taken her to my bed. I hadn't kissed her. I hadn't touched her other than a place on her arm where something else once hurt her. She'd met no one in the family other than Erick. She'd never been in our house. She'd never crossed the _fence_ between the two houses. But when they made her scream in fear, I put them down. I took something out of the world that wanted to hurt her, so it could never hurt her again. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I get it."

"_Do_ you? She's my wife now. She's carrying my child. You've done more than try to hurt her; you _did_ hurt her. You laid hands on her. I should have put you down then. She held me back. Over and over, she's done that. I watched the last part of your punishment instead of participating, because of her. Is that how a brainwashed woman acts? Wouldn't she do as I said, without question? Would she question my decisions, any of them?"

John just stared at him.

"If you ever try to hurt her or force her to do anything she doesn't want to again..._all_ I did was put down those other animals. Do you think that's all I'm capable of? Do you think that's even all I _want_ to do? I don't do it because that's what she wants, but it's the last time."

He stood, took the phone back from Randy, and walked out without another word or a look back.

"Well?"

"He's scared."

Randy thought a good, long scream might make him feel better. He couldn't imagine much else that would right now. "John, he is _not_ scared. He's pissed off up to his eyebrows. Wherever they are. _I'm_ scared."

"You don't have to be."

"No? I'm sitting here watching you throw yourself up against him until you manage to commit suicide on him. I can't watch it any more, John. God, I didn't want to do this. But either you leave that girl alone to live her life, or I'm leaving. I love you too much to watch you kill yourself, and that's what's next. Do you think he doesn't _mean_ it?"

"You want me to just abandon her in a cult? I thought you liked her."

"I do. Why can't you _see_? All she wants is to be left alone. But he tells you, you don't believe it. She tells you, I tell you, for fucksake _Barrett_ tells you, and you still don't believe it. I can't do it any more, John. I can't watch you keep stalking that girl and fucking yourself up. I know you think you're doing the right thing, but when is terrorizing a pregnant woman _ever_ right?"

John slumped into a chair and put his face in his hands. For almost five minutes, he said nothing. "You'd really leave me?"

"Instead of watching you fucking murder yourself? Not for anything else in the world, John, but for that, yes. I can't any more. It's your choice if I stay or go. Leave that girl _alone_. I want my man back."

He knew he should make him say it, but when John held his arms out, Randy went into them. He could wrench the words out of him later.


	10. Chapter 10

The sudden quiet felt like tornado weather to Julia more than like the storm passing. She'd talked Luke - and through him, Bray - into letting her not walk around under guard any more, but that didn't mean she wasn't watching.

The quiet lasted three weeks; she thought even that was a gift. He found her on the porch again.

"You gonna call in the goon squad again?" He was standing on the bottom step, where they couldn't corner him this time.

"No. But you just stand right there and we can have the same argument for the hundredth time. And then you should go away, don't you think? Someone _will_ notice you eventually."

"Talking doesn't help. Get up. We're leaving."

"No, we're not. _You_ are. Not me."

"You'll see. When you're away from them for a while, it'll be different."

"I _was_ away for a while. A month, remember? I sure the hell do."

"Yeah, but they didn't leave you alone. You need to be somewhere they can't get to you. That's where I went wrong." He moved up on the second step.

"I said stand still." She took the .45 out from where she'd set it behind her book. "I'm a good shot. So you don't have to test that, do you?"

He put his foot on the top step. She fired, aiming to wound. The bullet creased his calf and vanished. He did exactly what she expected him to do - howled and grabbed his leg. His back foot slipped - someone had hosed down the porch during the afternoon - and he went down, into the yard.

He screamed; it didn't sound like a reaction to landing on his leg. She hadn't wounded him that badly. She saw the snake slip out from under him only because it was moving very slowly; the back half of it looked squashed. She shot it; it was suffering. Cena shouted again.

People were finally starting to gather; she thought it was the yelling rather than the shots. Gunfire wasn't exactly alien to the place. They ate a lot of rabbit.

Several of the men gathered in a loose half-circle around him, looking at her for direction.

"Be careful. Don't step on the snake. You can still get a blast from a dead one, if he didn't get it all." She looked down at the tableau for a few seconds. It would be the easy way out, wouldn't it? Dump him in the swamp, let nature take its course. It wasn't a very sure way, though. Even if the bite was bad, that didn't mean it would be fatal, not by a long shot. "Get him in the house."

"In the cellar?" That came from one of her former security force.

"No. Put him in one of the empty rooms. And one of you come help me."

"I'm not going in there!"

Julia sighed. "You want to die in the dirt out here? That's a cottonmouth you just got friendly with. That whole martyr thing, I can see you being into that. But I promise you, if you do they won't find you here. There's a lot of somewhere else to leave your carcass. What's it going to be?"

He didn't answer, but he didn't fight when they carried him inside.

Her assistant stood by silently and let her pile things in his arms until it was obvious what she was going to do. "_Why?_ He deserves to die."

"That's really not for you _or_ me to say, Tyler. Besides, we don't need the shitstorm that would come rolling in behind it. Come on. I'm probably going to need you to hold him down."

She did, for more than one reason. He was already in a lot of pain - it didn't take long - and he reacted to the IV setup about the way she thought he would.

"Don't be an idiot. It's antivenom. What, you think I dragged you in here so I could pump you full of weed killer?"

She got the IV in and marked the borders of the bite. It already looked bad. "Your buddy out there went out in a blaze of glory. I'm going to have to do this again at least once. How about you not be a dumbass about it?" She bandaged the crease on his leg, too. It was the least of his problems, but the last thing she needed was for him to bleed out what she was trying to get into him.

She left two men to watch him, not that she thought he was going to be getting up to much trouble for a while. She wasn't about to sit there and listen to any more of his bullshit, though.

It drove her up a wall to be helping him, but there was nothing else for it. What she'd told Tyler was only the truth; they didn't need the grief that would come after letting him die, assuming he would. She figured she'd be in for enough of that when Luke got an eyeful of their new guest. Not to mention Bray.

She went back half an hour later. The trauma and discoloration around the wound was spreading. Just to add to the good news, she was going to have to use most of her stock of antivenom. It was a massive hassle to get more.

"It hurts. A lot."

"I know. A venomous snakebite is one of the more unpleasant things that can happen to a person. I don't have anything for the pain, nothing that would really help. This will, but it'll take time."

"Bet that breaks your heart, doesn't it?"

"Not much. Did you expect tears?"

He didn't answer. She was just as happy with that.

She sat in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do now. What she really wanted was a sandwich. Pickles, butter, maybe some salt and pepper...

_Oh no, you don't in there. Don't you even start that mess right now._

She went back in an hour later and started another IV. She thought the advance of the damage was slowing, but it was still moving.

"Why?"

"Getting existential on me now?"

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because you'd somehow manage to be even more inconvenient dead than alive. Which is pretty impressive, considering." He was going to be plenty inconvenient come tomorrow, dead or alive. It might be an idea to chain Luke to something before anyone told him.

"They listen to you."

"Of course they do. I'm in charge, for a couple more days, anyway." _And you can just suck on that, why don't you?_

"So you could just walk away, right? And no one would stop you?" His tone was complete disbelief.

"I could. But why would I? People who walk away from their family are pretty low, to my way of thinking, anyway. Does Randy know you came back here?"

"Not yet." He paused long enough that she thought that was all he was going to say. "He said he'd leave if I did."

"And you did it anyway. Jesus Tittyfuck Christ." That earned her a wall-eyed stare from Cena _and_ from Tyler, who was sitting by the door. "That's pretty stupid, considering you like me exactly as much as I like you."

She _did_ like Randy, though, even if she wasn't entirely sure why. He was halfway like a trip back into her worst memories of high-school jerks. But only halfway. When Cena finally fell asleep, she took his phone.


	11. Chapter 11

The key, Julia thought, was to not let go. Luke couldn't kill anything with her hanging on to him like a baby koala.

"Why do you care what happens to him?" She could hear the current of anger vibrating through his voice. It was strange to her, a thing she'd almost never heard.

"He can go to hell on a handcart for all I care. I care what happens to _you_. Don't you know that? Not after all this time? Never mind jail; I don't want to see you...slip away. Back to that place. Do you want that to happen?"

He shook his head, eyes troubled.

"Neither do I. I need you. We do." She smiled suddenly, tracing the upper arc of a cheekbone with her fingertip. "I fell down the rabbit hole following you. You do _not_ get to leave me here, buddy. Let Bray take care of it." She wasn't sure he had any choice in the matter, anyway; it was Bray who'd sent him back here to her to start with. He understood as well as she did, if not better, what the stakes were. He'd seen Luke the way he used to be.

She'd gotten her first serious look at how frightening Bray could be, too. He was furious when she told him Cena was back, and absolutely livid to find Orton there with him. She'd desperately wanted to hide behind Luke when she told them she'd been the one to call Orton, and what she'd done for Cena. But she didn't. She'd made these choices, and the consequences were hers to face. She wasn't going to face them with her head down like a coward. Walk upright? All right, then. Bray had never asked her to prove she could, not in four years. It was time. When Bray left the room with a curt gesture to her to follow, she knew it was time.

She was more frightened than she'd ever been here, but she looked him squarely in the eye. for almost a minute, that was all that happened. Finally, he shook his head and brushed a hand over her hair. "You've changed since you came to us, do you know that? You've found the things inside you I knew were there. All right, then, I know you didn't do these things for no reason. Tell me your reasons."

She did. It really boiled down to two points: If she'd been sure the bite would kill Cena, she might have let it happen; but there was no certainty of that at all. It was far more unlikely than likely, in fact. And he'd told her that Orton would leave him for coming back here again. In no way could she imagine a scenario in which that would make him better rather than much worse. "He'd blame me for that, too. And then what?"

Bray nodded. "I would much rather you hadn't brought Orton here, but there wasn't much else to be done, I suppose. It might even come to some use. Go upstairs. Wait for your husband. I'll send him to you soon."

Which he'd done - an angry, frustrated husband who deeply wanted to kill something and had been expressly forbidden to. Which was when the Koala Clutch had started to seem like a really good idea.

But now his hands were in her hair, his mouth was seeking hers, and it was better. As long as she could be one of his tethers to this life, it would be all right.

* * *

"It seems we'd better talk, don't you think?"

Randy knew it would come to that eventually A nice chat with Bray Wyatt about whether he was going to let Harper rip John's head off hadn't really been in his plans for the week, but it looked like it was time. "Bring Julia back to sit with him."

"Oh?" Wyatt looked more amused than anything; probably at being issued an order in the middle of his compound, Randy thought. He should probably curb that impulse.

"She's the only person in this place who doesn't fucking want him dead."

Bray thought he might be wrong about that, and not in the direction he might imagine. "All in all I think it best to leave her up there with Luke. If we were going to further harm your lover, he'd already _be_ harmed. As would you. No one will trouble him."

They went outside and sat on the back porch. It was pleasant out there; it would be easy to forget the whole cult thing, if it weren't the entire problem, at least in John's eyes.

"Tell me, now that you've spent most of the past 24 hours here, what impressions do you have?"

"Pretty much the ones I thought I would, honestly. I'm not the one you have to convince. I already knew she wants to be here. She's happy here. They're all happy she's here, too. That's not hard to see. But John isn't going to see it, no matter how much of it is right in front of his eyes."

"Is that why you threatened to leave him?" He smiled briefly at Randy's startled look. "Julia told me."

"Yeah, it is."

"And will you?"

"No. I didn't think it was a bluff when I said it, but I guess it is. I can't leave him."

Randy was halfway out of his chair when he realized the screams coming from above his head weren't of pain or fear. Not by a long way. _Damn. Dude's got skills, I guess._

Bray stifled a smile, not entirely successfully. "She does have a way of cooling his temper, easing the stresses inside him. Urges can be redirected. Given a better focus. There is some risk for her in doing that, but she loves him enough to ignore that. It might even give a bit of spice to it for her, don't you think?"

Randy was smart and aware enough to know what the point really being made here was. "We're not the same as the two of them are."

"Not identical, true. But you and Julia both love men who tend toward...excesses of their different urges. That your man is still alive in spite of all he's done speaks to how well she's able to redirect Luke's, wouldn't you say?"

"It doesn't speak to what _you_ do?"

"That they were ever _put_ under control does, yes. That they stay that way is largely her doing."

She was screaming again. There were words in it this time, mostly his name, and _yes_, and maybe a little unnervingly, pleas for him to do it harder.

"She has her ways, and you would have yours. But do you think that means you have nothing to learn from her? Talk to her. Later, I'd suggest."

They sat there, Bray looking amused and maybe a little happy, and Randy trying to ignore that the racket up there was starting to turn him on. _That's a woman who's into every bit of what she's getting. And he's sure not complaining, either._ Harper was quieter than she was, but there was still plenty of growling and moaning in a deep voice going on up there. Randy wasn't sure if he was going to talk to her about this, but if he did, he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to look her in the face while he was doing it.

* * *

"Hey, I have to go look in on him. I'll be right back."

The answer Julia got was a growl and Luke taking a tighter grip on her.

She laughed softly. "The sooner he's better, the sooner he's out of here. Behave yourself."

Erick met her halfway downstairs, and promptly turned and went back with her. He wasn't smiling; he did that even less often than he spoke. But something in his expression seemed to say _If I smiled, I'd be doing the shit out of it right now._

She'd never entirely gotten used to about 30 people knowing pretty much every time she got laid, but she'd never managed to figure out how to be any quieter about it. She'd always been a little bit of a screamer, and four years hadn't changed the fact that it was ten times better with Luke than it had ever been with anyone else she'd been with. Combined.

When she'd worked up the nerve to tell Luke how embarrassed she was, he'd just smiled and told her it would make them happy to know things were good with them. And he did seem to be right about that; where Erick was concerned, definitely.

The _if I did_ look faded as they got closer to the room Cena was in. "You going to be a problem, big guy? Do I have to make you wait out here?"

He shook his head. As she moved past him into the room, she heard a familiar crackling. No surprise, that. Cena might be the last person on the planet Erick would approach unmasked.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better. Where's Randy?"

"I have no idea. I'm sure he'll be back before too long. He hasn't been away from you much, you know."

"He said you called him. Thanks."

She nodded. It was a lot more for Orton than for him as far as she was concerned, but saying so wouldn't accomplish anything useful. "You should be able to leave whenever Bray says."

"Will you be happy to see me go?"

"More than you can possibly imagine." She uncovered the bite wound; it was healing nicely, and a good, strong triple antibiotic ointment had taken care of the secondary concern, which was always infection in a serious puncture wound. "Get some Bacitracin or something like it when you get home. Keep using it until you can't see a mark on your skin any more, and then three days after. You're going to have a little scar, but nothing that will scare people if your socks fall down."

She covered that wound up and went to the other one. "Use it here, too, same way. This scar's going to be a little bigger. Something to remember me by." She re-bandaged that one, too. "I'm going to say something to you, and you're going to shut up just once and listen to me, or I'll have Erick _make_ you shut up."

When he didn't give her some wise answer back, she nodded. "You've taken advantage of the fact that I'm smaller than you are. You could hit me and know I wasn't getting up right away. That makes you a miserable shit by any standard I've ever known. But you went one better, didn't you? You've taken advantage of the fact that I wouldn't fight you physically, not while it would put the baby at risk. You would have raped me knowing I wouldn't fight you for the baby's sake. That makes you not human where I come from, you son of a bitch. If you ever come near me again,_ I'm_ going to take advantage of being pregnant. I'm going to shoot you straight between your fucking eyes, and dare any jury they can seat to convict me. I won't ask if you understand me. You never have before. But I warned you. I'm not going to feel a goddamned thing but a trigger under my finger if I ever see you again."

She had to lead Erick out by the wrist; he didn't seem inclined to leave on his own, and she was pretty sure if she left him in there, she'd come back to a dead problem. "Come on, big guy. I don't mean to be responsible for you going to prison, either."

She heard him take the mask off the moment the door shut behind them. She didn't think she'd ever really understand him, but that didn't change the fact that she liked him, never mind that he ought to be the scariest thing about this place. He watched her all the way up the stairs. She couldn't see him when she shut the bedroom door behind her, but she knew he was still there, waiting for that sound.


	12. Chapter 12

"I...well, uh..."

Julia smiled to herself. Bray had told her she should expect this before they left, but she couldn't resist letting Orton squirm just a little first. "Sit down. I know why you're here."

"Good. Because I sure the hell didn't want to have to _tell_ you why."

"I almost made you do it anyway. You're damn near purple."

He sat down and looked squarely between his feet. "I guess the idea is if you can control _him_, I oughta be able to control John, right?"

"First thing to do is get rid of that idea. I don't control Luke. I mean...seriously?"

"All right, so what do you call it?"

"It's not about what to call it; it's about what you _do_. I don't make him stop doing things, even if he does make it sound like that sometimes. I couldn't do that; there's a damn strong will under all that hair."

"That's kind of a weird fit with being in a cult, isn't it?"

"It is if things are like your man thinks they are. That ought to be food for thought, but not even force-feeding him is working any more. Time to try something new, isn't it?" She looked at him, expression serene, fingers laced over her stomach. "So when he starts getting weird, get weird _with_ him."

"Uh...is that what you do?"

"I prefer preventative weird to curative weird. But it takes some practice to catch it before it happens. Not that the practice isn't fun, you understand. It's all about finding a good place for the impulses, whatever they are."

"Urges. Yeah, he looked like he was having some happy-time thinking about those."

She clapped a hand over a grin. "I noticed. I was kind of proud of myself, too." She looked at him for a while, obviously trying to collect her thoughts. "Luke is a violent man. I can't imagine that's news to anyone who works with him. So there are two kinds of outlets I could be providing, right? He could be abusing me - which he is _not_ - or I could be giving him better channels for all that energy."

"Sex."

"A lot of that, yes. But other things, too. Someone to talk to a lot of the time, someone he can be totally honest with. I give a pretty mean backrub, too. And sometime I don't _do_ anything at all. I sit with him and read a book and trust that he loves me and can control the darker things in his nature. That works for us. You have to figure out what works for you."

"I don't even know where to start."

"If he wants to rescue something, buy a puppy. If he wants to control something, break out the handcuffs. Who they go on is for you two to negotiate...but he could learn a lot about the pleasures of not being in control, couldn't he?"

He stared until she started laughing again.

"No, we don't. You're really trying hard not to ask, aren't you? Fine, you're off the hook: We're so normal in bed it would probably put you to sleep to watch. No handcuffs, no whips, no re-enacting scenes from _Eyes Wide Shut_. He needs normal, I like normal, and that all works out just fine for us."

"That's not normal screaming I heard."

"It is in our circumstances. I'm, uh...loud anyway. And the Endowment Fairy must have been in a _really_ generous mood that day."

This time he stared until _he_ started laughing. "And no _yeah yeah yeah_?"

"Only when he's in the mood to tease me."

The idea of Harper teasing anyone was going to take some mental adjustments. "I still can't figure you out, you know that? You must have given up a lot to be here. You said you were doing research, so you had plans, right?"

"Lots of them. And I thought I did have to give up all that, at first. Wait here." She got up and went in the house. She came back carrying two thick books, which she handed to him.

He wasn't entirely surprised to see her name on the covers of both, or that they were both about snakes.

"I didn't finish my degree. But I did publish. They've done pretty well, among the people who are interested in this kind of information. The third's in the works. Probably none of them would have happened if I'd taken the degree-classroom route. I wouldn't have had time for the research."

Curious, he flipped one of the books over to the back. There was a small, smiling photo of her above a blurb: _Julia Harper is a researcher specializing in Southern-U.S. Agkistrodons. She lives in Florida with her husband. _ "No one ever gets curious?"

"I write academic books about snakes, not novels about boy wizards. No one cares. And my publisher wouldn't tell anyone anything if they _did_ know, which they don't. They're pretty much the last of the old-school publishers. It wasn't easy to find one that takes handwritten manuscripts."

He took the books up and showed them to John. He wasn't sure what good that would do, but he was surprised by how long and how thoughtfully he looked at them.

"She has a life here, John, more than a lot of people get to have. A husband, a kid on the way, a career. She's writing another book. Does it matter _that_ much to you where she lives?"

"I can't help her, can I?"

"You can't help someone who doesn't want it. And you sure as hell can't help someone who doesn't need it. And _she does not need it_. She doesn't need you. Or me, for that matter. But I need you. _You_, not whatever this is making you into." _And just maybe we're both going to have some learning to do about that when we get home._

They left the next day, seen off by about 30 people who looked entirely pleased to see them go.

He had one last bit of curiosity to satisfy when they got home. Google took care of it.

She was on there, but not in any great amount. Most of it was on a message board where they reviewed those kind of books. He didn't understand most of it, but her reputation seemed pretty solid. If anyone had seen her brief moments on TV, they hadn't recognized her. He wasn't surprised; he didn't think snake scientists were really their target audience. There was one comment that she turned down, through her publisher, all lecture invitations. No one seemed really surprised by that; she was a researcher, and they seemed to assume she'd want to stay out there working. She was right; no one was especially curious.

Randy waited a few days before he asked. "What hit home, man? What finally did it?"

"She _shot_ me. She did that, and then she said she'd do it for good, right in the head, if I came back, and no one would convict her."

"She's fucking right, too."

"I know. I'd be dead and she'd go right back to them. What good is it?"

_Little steps_, Randy thought. Maybe he'd never really accept that he'd been stalking and terrorizing a woman who'd been happy and at peace before he came along. But as long as he accepted that doing it was useless, that was a start.


End file.
